Pirate track: small team, good result

Photo courtesy Sabra MillerPagosa’s Toni Stoll met four goals at the Sangre De Cristo Invitational on April 6. She placed first in four events, including the long jump, the triple jump, the 100-meter hurdles and the 300 hurdles. Stoll currently ranks No. 1 in the Colorado 3A triple jump with a distance of 35 feet, 9 inches.

Only 23 of 60 members of the Pirate track team attended the Sangre De Cristo Invitational on April 6, but the small numbers didn’t stop them from placing fourth out of 20 teams in both boys’ and girls’ standings.

It was a beautiful day for a meet, with little wind and a new track to run on.

Seven Pirate girls attended the invitational and three of them had standout performances: Toni Stoll, Taylor Strohecker and Morgan Schaaf.

In the girls’ 100-meter hurdles, Stoll placed first with a time of 17 minutes, 12 seconds. She also placed first in the girls’ 300 with a time of 49.73.

Stoll placed first in both the girls long jump and the girls triple. In the long jump, she won with distance of 16 feet, 5 inches. In the triple, she won with a distance of 36-05.

“What I really like about her (Stoll) is that, she’s been kind of injured, and she went and got some therapy on it and rested it a little bit,” coach Scott White explained. “She felt good in the second half of the week and we said, ‘lets put her in and see how she does.’ We sat down and gave her some goals for all four events and she met every goal.”

At this time, Stoll ranks No. 2 in the in Colorado 3A long jump with a distance of 16.5 and first in the triple with a distance of 35.9.

Returning state champion Taylor Strohecker placed second in the high jump with a height of 4-10.

Schaaf placed sixth in the girls’ discus event with a throw of 88-05.

The meet gave many of the younger Pirate boys a chance to compete.

Sophomore Ben Miller placed third in the 3,200 with a time of 13:30.18.

Freshman Michael Iverson placed fourth in the 3,200 with a time of 13:51.86.

“They had never run before. It was really cool for them,” White explained.

In the boys’ 800 meter run, Tate Drane placed first with a time of 2:13.44. He also placed fourth in the high jump with a leap of 5-4.

Senior Daniel Sloan placed second in the boys’ long jump with a distance of 18.02. White calls Sloan his, “most consistent senior.”

The Pirates came in first in the 4×400 relay with Drane, Sloan, David McRee and Bobby Tuller running a time of 3:45.16.

“Even without our full team, we were only two seconds slower this week,” White said. “It’s been a weird year so far; every meet we’ve had anything from kids coming out late from basketball, which is understandable, to right when we should really be gearing up we have spring break, a really late spring break.

“We hope to put everything back together in the two-day meet against Aztec. I know I’m going to lose some kids in Aztec also because it’s a Friday/Saturday meet and on Saturday there is an FBLA competition, so I’ll end up losing a handful of kids for that. I think the first time we’ll see every kid as a team will be the Abel Velasquez Invitational in Ignacio, April 27. That’s only three meets left in the whole year at that point. They gotta figure out in three weeks what we can do as a team. Nobody has really seen our full team yet. I really have a lot of high hopes for them, and I really do believe that we have the strongest team in the area, once we put it all together.”

On Thursday, the Pirates will travel to Cortez for the Montezuma-Cortez Invitational. Several more basketball players will be making their way to the track, ready to help contribute to relays and other events. The big question is how they will compete coming right out of basketball.

“Overall, getting fourth with not even a third of the team being there, it was really a good thing for us,” White explained, “I can’t wait to see our full team. I think once we get everybody together, we should be good.”